Four youngsters, ages nine to fifteen, narrate one side of the story of their newly blended family's adjustment, interwoven with grief and loss.

While spending his Christmas vacation in New York City with his father and new stepfamily, twelve-year Lucas meets a rebellious agent of the secret Annoyance Bureau, which exists to control or eliminate all sources of annoyance in the modern world.

"Q and his half-sister Angela are spending the night in the White House. What should have been a great honor turns into an incredible nightmare of intrigue with bombings, kidnappings, spies, terrorists, and ghosts. Behind it all is Angela's mother, Malak, who is supposed to be dead. Whose side is Malak on? How will Q and Angela stop the ghosts from destroying the United States of America?"--Page 2 of cover.

"The president's daughter has been kidnapped by the elusive and lethal Ghost Cell. Quest (Q) and Angela are in hot pursuit with vicious winds and blinding rain thwarting them at every turn. It's a desperate high stakes chase"--

Eleven-year-old Nicholas Vargas only thinks his life has been turned upside down after his developer father remarries and moves his new wife and daughter into the soon-to-be completed Mangrove Hollow. But an "expedition" to a nearby lake turns up a little nixie with a giant problem--the huge, lumbering, fire-breathing variety--and it's up to Nick, his stepsister Laurie, and his big brother, Julian (plus a familiar face from the original Spiderwick...

"When Quest (Q) and his stepsister Angela head to Texas for their parents' concert, they discover traces of the terrorist group Ghost Cell in the Lone Star state"-Provided by publisher.